Sheriff Tas
by Odin1
Summary: Tas is the sheriff of Tombstone......what?????


Tasslehoff Burrfoot rode atop of his shaggy pony, his six-shooters, one on each hip, loaded and ready. He was the sheriff of Tombstone, the law of the town! His ten-gallon hat rode low over his eyes, blocking the savage sun that shone down from above. His leather chaps fit tight on his legs, and his leather vest was stained with what looked to be tobacco stains. A corncob pipe stuck out from between his thin lips, and his sheriff's badge sparkled brightly in the sun.

He reached the local tavern, and after a moment trying to get his spurs unstuck from his stirrup, finally managed to jump from his pony. His spurs rattled as he swung open the doors into the tavern. "Your sheriff is her…" his words were interrupted as the door swung back out and sent him flying backwards onto the dirt road.

Laughter burst out from inside the tavern as Sheriff Tas picked himself up on the dirt, and dusted his vest off, and adjusted his topknot. The smile stayed on his face though, as he walked up the steps again, and this time ran through the doors, leaving them swinging back and forth behind him. He smiled at his victory over the doors, and turned to the chuckling patrons of the bar.

"As I was saying, your sheriff is here!" he said, pushing out his chest in pride.

The men and women in the bar burst into laughter again, some of them smacking the table in their fits of amusement. Women covered their mouths and pointed at the small kender for the railings above. 

"What? What is it? Tell me! I want to know the joke!" Tas said smiling, looking around the tavern for whoever could have told such a funny joke.

A rather big man in dirt covered riding clothes, walked up to Tasslehoff, and stood in front of him with hands on hips. "You!" he said smacking Tas's hat off of his head. "You are only sheriff cause the last weakling was your best friend!" the man said, sending spittle flying onto Tas.

Tas looked around for his hat, which had rolled against the wall of the tavern. After a moment of moving through the men that had surrounded him, and squeezing through their legs, he finally reached his hat, which he dusted off, and placed back on his head, sideways at first, and then fixing it and putting it on correctly.

"Yeah, well he may have been my best friend. But I am still the law around here!" he said dramatically, pushing through the legs of the dirty men that were still in a circle around where he was before. They looked down at him a little confused, many of them wondering what the kender could be doing. "That is right! I am still the law! And if you guys don't listen to me, well then…. some very bad stuff is going to happen, I can tell you that!" he said, pulling out his guns and spinning them on his forefingers.

He misjudged the speed of his bravado though, for soon his guns were flying off his fingers and into the air, smacking the dirty man that had threatened him in the face and knocking him backwards, and then hitting the ground and firing a shot. Men and women dove behind the bar, and under tables, trying to escape the bullets that were firing from the flying guns.

"Oops! Watch out! Whoa I'm sorry about that! Oh man, you aren't going to be able to sit down for a while! Wow! That bottle exploded!" Tas said, yelling out warnings to the scrambling people. 

When the guns finally came to a rest, people began to stand slowly, except for a few that had been hit by a few stray bullets, and lay groaning on the floor. Tasslehoff, walked over and picked up his pistols, and slid them back into his holsters. "Well, that sure was interesting." He smiled with his thumbs tucked in his belt. "I should probably be going!" he said quickly, and stepped towards the door.

"Hold on a minute!" came a voice from behind him.

Tas turned to face the same dirty man that had threatened him before, "yes, can I help you?" he asked him.

"Yeah, you can help me! You and I are going to have a little duel! No one throws their gun at my forehead and gets away with it!"

"A duel? Well now, I have to say that that really does sound fun. But I have other things that need to be done. I have to go to the inn and say hello to some friends, I have to clean the horse dung up out of the street, wouldn't want anyone stepping in that, Yuck!" he said quickly, "so I should be going, maybe some other time!" I waved his goodbyes, and walked out the door.

The dirty man followed him and picked him up by the topknot, and turned him around to look into his yellow teeth. "We are going to duel little one! Whether you like it or not!" 

"Fine! If we must, I will have to warn you though. I am pretty good with my guns! I can do this trick where I spin them on my fingers. Would you like to see?" he asked, putting his hands on the butts of his guns.

The dirty man quickly dropped him, and placed his hands in front of his face, "No! I don't want to see! Lets just get on with the duel!" 

By this time a crowd of people had gathered along the dirt street. Many of them were wondering what exactly was going on; still others were just in for a little entertainment for the day. Either way, they all knew that a duel was coming between the kender and the ruffian.

"Ok, lets get on with the duel then!" Tas shrugged.

They walked into the middle of the street. "We stand back to back, we take twenty paces, and then turn and shoot! The one that dies…loses!" the ruffian said with a toothy smile.

Tas nodded, "alright, that sounds fun. Though I hope I'm not that one that loses, I don't think that would be that fun. I would rather like to live…but if not, oh well. I will go to that great kender place in the sky." He smiled wistfully.

They stood back to back, the short kender behind the much larger dirty man. "Remember, at twenty paces, turn and shoot!" the man said again. "Ready…. one…two…" they began walking away from each other.

They walked under the setting sun, Tas walking one way, the man walking the other. "Seventeen…. eighteen…. nineteen…twenty…. Draw!" the dirty man yelled, and turned and reached for his silver guns. They weren't there!

He looked at his hips, but his holsters were empty! His guns were gone! Where could they have gone? He thought he was dead for sure, but as he raised his gaze to look at the kender firing his gun, he was surprised to see that Tas wasn't even standing where he should have been. 

"Where is he??" the man bellowed to the onlookers.

Many of them were smiling and pointing a ways down the road, where far in the distance, the man could see a kender riding a pony into the sunset, with two silver guns spinning on his fingers.

****I originally had this story published on Dragonlance.com in the fanfic section. I thought I would put it on here for other's enjoyment. Hope you enjoyed.****


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